


Buried

by DarkNymfa



Series: Corpse AU [3]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 03:37:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16485227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkNymfa/pseuds/DarkNymfa
Summary: "If I die, I’m coming back to haunt you.”“Yeah sure, as the weakest ghost ever. Just get on with it you big baby.”





	Buried

**Author's Note:**

> Not rated because I don't know how graphic is too graphic for teens. I don't think it's overly graphic but better safe than sorry?
> 
> Someone asked for it, so here it is, the cut intro of [Unearthed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16355984/chapters/38549291), which describes the Accident in that AU. I kinda like it, which is why I'm posting it anyway, but tbh I wanted a lot more confrontation and stuff to be included.

“Come on Danny, you should get closer so I can take a picture with you and the Portal!”

“I don’t know Sam, it might be dangerous.”

“Oh come on dude, it’ll be fine! It doesn’t even work, you’ve said so yourself.”

“Alright, alright, fine. But if I die, I’m coming back to haunt you.”

“Yeah sure, as the weakest ghost ever. Just get on with it you big baby.”

“No no no, you should put on a jumpsuit like your parents. It’ll look good in the photos.”

“Ugh, Sam, really? You suck.”

“See, they even have one in your size! And it’s not even some garishly bright color.”

“Wait, hang on, let me peel the sticker off. There, see how professional you look?”

“Professionally lame. Let’s just get this over with before my parents come home.”

“Danny, you said they would be out for hours, they’re not gonna catch us.”

“There, I’m posing with the Portal. Take the picture and let’s go.”

“Hold on, we should take one with you inside as well.”

“Sam...”

“Dude, just do as she asks, you’re not gonna convince her.”

“Fine, I’m going in already. How far do you want me?”

“A little further should be fine. Keep going, keep going...”

“Oh shi-”

_click_

  


The quiet _click_ that Sam heard that day was the second most haunting sound she would ever hear. It was beaten only by the sound that followed it.

She and Tucker stood around the entrance of the Portal, watching as Danny wandered deeper inside it, his fingers trailing over the wall on his left, enough to guide him but without any weight behind them. She had her camera raised, ready to take a picture once he got deep enough.

Suddenly he tripped, stumbled, caught himself on the wall.

A click, like a button being pressed, resounded through the entire lab. Danny cursed, but didn’t even get to finish his sentence before being cut off by a searingly bright flash.

It was almost instantly followed by a terrible, breath-stopping _scream_. Sam froze in place, couldn’t do anything except glance at Tucker, who seemed to be in the same situation. They could only stand and listen, horrified.

The Portal had lit up, the entire metal arch filled with a vivid green. They couldn’t see past the swirling mass that filled it, couldn’t see inside the tunnel where their best friend was _screaming_.

The scream cut off as suddenly as it had begun, and the surface of the Portal stirred, seeming to bunch up before splitting away, and Danny fell through it and onto the floor of the lab.

The moment was broken, and Sam and Tucker both stepped forward, intending to tend to their _smoking_ best friend. They were distracted, however, by the second figure that emerged from the Portal.

This figure appeared to be a teenager much like themselves, but it was clearly a ghost. It emitted a soft white glow, its hair was white as fresh snow, and it appeared to be dressed entirely in black, but with white gloves and boots.

It had stumbled out of the Portal hunched over, and while it had stopped walking, it remained curled in on itself. Its gaze was fixated on Danny.

Oh shit _, Danny_. Sam tore her eyes off of the ghost and sped towards her best friend, kneeling next to him. She hovered over him awkwardly, unsure of what she could do. He was burned pretty much beyond recognition, skin scorched and a mix of black and red and the occasional white of bone. A few brittle black hairs remained, and some patches of his clothes, which had melted into his skin, but nothing else remained.

Sam knew, of course, that there was no way Danny was still alive. That didn’t stop her from denying it, of course.

“Tucker, come help me with Danny!” she called, turning around to glare him into moving. Tucker wasn’t the only one who reacted, however.

The ghost, who up until that point hadn’t taken its eyes off of Danny, finally broke out of its fixation and glanced over at her. Its eyes were a haunting acid-green color, the same as the Portal behind it. Sam shivered involuntarily.

Tucker, who had in turn been looking at the ghost, turned to face her as well. “You’re joking, right? Sam, I don’t think there’s anything we can do for him. The fucking- the fucking Portal killed him, man. _We_ killed him.”

The ghost, who had looked at Tucker while he spoke, started glancing between the two humans and the dead body, panic growing on its face.

Sam would normally feel bad for it, since it was apparently some helpless creature, but right now she had to think of her best friend first.

“Tucker, there has to be _something_ we can do! Just come over here!” she growled at him, fixing him with one of her patented glares. Tucker hesitated for another moment before moving over, but kept an eye on the visibly panicking ghost.

Sam hadn’t even noticed the ghost move until she saw a shadow fall over her, and startled, she turned around so quickly that she fell over. The teenager stood over her, eyes blown wide and mouth working silently.

Sam, emboldened by a sudden wave of anger, pushed herself upright and then shoved the ghost away. “Fuck off! Don’t you see that we’re busy with something more important than you?!”

The ghost looked at her, stunned, before finally uttering, “ _Sam?_ ”

And despite the strange echo that it now possessed, the voice was instantly recognizable.

Tucker swore under his breath, but Sam- Sam couldn’t say anything. She just stared at the ghost, and it- _he_ stared back. And she finally took in his appearance, the messy haircut and the structure of his face and the jumpsuit- the jumpsuit that _she_ had forced him to wear.

“Oh, _Danny_ ,” she muttered, and reached out to him, gently grabbing his shoulder. He was cold to the touch, but not freezing, and still seemed as solid as he had always been.

She pulled him in closer, and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. He melted away against her, his cold arms wrapping themselves around her, and she could feel him shaking, still panicking.

“Shh, shh. We’ll figure it out, okay Danny? Just calm down, deep breaths,” she soothed, taking a deep breath herself.

She could hear Tucker’s feet scuffing the floor as he approached, but she focused on Danny, who still wasn’t calming down. His breathing was irregular, but she wasn’t sure if it was because he was so freaked out, or because breathing didn’t come naturally to him as a ghost.

“Dude, just calm down, okay? She’s right, we’ll figure this out, we always do.”

Danny closed his eyes, and she could feel Danny take a shaky but deep breath, and then suddenly she could only see white. For a moment she found herself caught in a horrible flashback (a click, a flash, a _scream_ ), but she could still feel Danny’s arms wrapped around herself, and she could still feel him beneath her own arms. She imagined he felt warmer, all of a sudden, but pushed the thought away.

Blinking away the blindness from the flash, she looked back at the boy in her arms, and felt her own breath catch. He was no longer glowing, no longer resembled a ghost at all. His hair had returning to its original glossy black, his jumpsuit was the same white it had been before he had entered the Portal, and she was certain that if he had opened his eyes, they would be the same sky-blue as before.

Tucker was clearly seeing the same thing, as he reached out and gently touched Danny’s face.

Danny’s eyes snapped open in response as he glanced at Tucker in confusion, and _yes_ , his eyes were that beautiful shade of blue, sparkling with life.

“Wh- What are you doing? Why are you looking at me like that?” He let go of Sam, moving away from the both of them.

“Dude, you just- you just turned back to normal. Like nothing- nothing ever happened.”

Danny frowned, glancing at the both of them. “Wait, what do you mean with ‘turned back to normal’? Did I… look different?”

“Uh, yeah, your colors were all like, inverted and stuff, and you were glowing. You looked like a ghost, man.”

He turned around, still frowning, and looked at the Portal. The green light reflected in his eyes, and Sam was reminded of how his eyes had looked just moments before.

Tucker cleared his throat, and the other two teenagers snapped their attention over to him. He gestured broadly towards the body that was still lying on floor of the lab.

“So now that we’ve established that you are, in fact, Danny, what about this guy? Because I could have sworn that this is Danny’s,” he gulped, “Danny’s body.”

Danny wandered over to the corpse, and knelt next to it. His eyes were roving over the scorched carcass, never settling too long on any part. Sam wondered what it was like to look at your own dead body, and decided she never wanted to find out.

“I think...” she muttered, “I think that that _is_ Danny’s body.” Seeing both boys look at her, she put on a brave face and continued.

“Danny, I think you died in the Portal, and that you became a ghost. I think you have some kind of ghostly ability that allows you to look like you’re alive, and I’m pretty sure that _that_ is your actual body.”

Danny nodded, hesitantly. “I think you’re right, Sam.”

A silence fell as all of them simultaneously realized that, oh God, Danny had died in the Portal, and it was _their_ fault. Well, Sam and Tucker both thought so. Danny instead concerned himself with worrying about what his parents would think, and how guilty his friends must be feeling, and similar tangents.

Tucker managed to snap out of his depressive spiral first, and seeing the warring emotions on the faces of his friends, decided to do what he did best: make a stupid joke.

He cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of the other two, and smiled at them, a little too fake to be convincing. “Man Danny, and I thought you were joking when you said you would come back to haunt us.”

Silence fell for a moment as they processed what Tucker said, before Danny snorted and Sam scowled. Mood successfully broken!

“Y’know Tucker, I thought so too.”

“Well, while I’m glad you’ve both found the humor in this situation, what now?”

“What do you mean, what now? Do you want him to go and find his ghost-hunting parents to tell them that he died and became a ghost?”

“Yeah, I don’t think that that’s a good idea. They’ll kill me when they find out. Well, not kill, but you know what I mean.”

“No idiots, that’s not what I was talking about. I meant that if we want to hide what happened here, we should probably do something about this _dead body._ ”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, probably. Any brilliant ideas?”

Tucker scoffed. “Why don’t we just bury it in the woods?”

“Tuck, that’s...” Sam thought about it for a moment. “Actually, that could work. How are we going to get it out there?”

“My parents have a cart we could use? They never use it anyway so they won’t notice if it goes missing, and we could cover it with a piece of tablecloth or something.”

And so the three found themselves bounding down the streets with a rather conspicuous cart, going as fast as they could go without looking suspicious. They had found three shovels and hidden them in the cart as well, and Sam was pushing it while Tucker held on to Danny, who was struggling to control the various ghostly abilities he had apparently gained. He luckily hadn’t transformed back yet, and the streets this far from the center of town were rather abandoned, so no one had seen him suddenly sink through the floor or turn invisible.

They finally made their way to the woods, lifting the corpse out of the cart and carrying it in deeper. Once they had reached a spot that they thought was desolate enough, they dug a hole as deep as they could, and buried the body that had once belonged to Danny.

The cart was inspected, deemed clean enough to not raise suspicion, and was brought back when they returned to FentonWorks.

And in the stress of the events that followed, as Danny struggled to control his new-found ghost powers and as ghosts started attacking Amity Park, the trio completely forgot about the body that they had buried in the woods.


End file.
